Monday, 8 September 2008

The Voice of Ndrek Gjini

Lar Mulhall, Ireland

Ndrek is doing B.A in Heritage Studies.He is my class mate.He is in top tre in our class.He loves his own coutry and he is great poet and wrtier.Here in GMIT he is not just our class mate nut many times he is our lecturer and i think he is going to to get a job in lecturering in this Institute.

The Voice of Ndrek Gjini

By Michael Mullen

I cannot recall the exact date and day upon which I met Ndrek Gjini. He was a charming man, quiet of voice and possessed an intelligent eye. He was a political exile from his country, a most respected journalist and writer and well established in his own country. It was his journalistic honesty which caused both himself and his family to flee from Albania and seek refuge in the West. First they came to Dublin and then to Castlebar. The events of the first two years in exile are Kafkaesque, sad and taste of bitter salt. Both he and his family were thrown a new culture. They lived in a single room in Castlebar, their language skills were limited and there were two children to rear. Ndrek Gjini was locked out of a literary culture and poured patiently over dictionaries trying to come to terms with a new language. Then one day like the young gull on a high Aran rock face he threw himself into the air and learned to fly. He emerged from his limiting space and began to talk. Quietly both he and his family found their voices and their friends. Thanks to a kind neighbour they moved into a good house, sent their children to school and began the process of integration. Ndrek had found his voice. He began to write in English. First he wrote poetry which I regard as firm, sad, heart warming and unusual. It has a definite tone and deep maturity. It looks at the world in an unusual way. Formerly Ink flowed through in his veins then it was frozen by tyranny and now it is flowing freely again.Like many literary exiles he has begun to keep a diary. It has been published in the Connaught Telegraph weeks by week and how honest and moving it is. As a stranger to the town he looks upon us with a novel eye. He observes things which we take for granted. He looks upon everything freshly as if the world has been newly made for him. It was slowly and with difficulty that he has reached that position but one must remember that there have been fine writers in English who were born abroad. Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia and Conrad was Polish. Samuel Beckett wrote in French.Ndrek Gjini’s diary is wonderful to read. Every page is human. Every page tells you something about the man and his family and the small domestic adventures which are part and parcel of living and always have been so. His writing is never sycophantic. He states his truth plainly. He set things down as he sees them in an easy fashion.

Such voices are wonderful to listen to. I am sure that these writings will be enjoyed by a wide range of people.

* Michael Mullen

Michael Mullen is Castlebar’s most prolific author with over 30 novels to his name. He is novelist, children’s writer, historian, and playwright. International reputation with novels published both at home and abroad, written historical and mythological works for children and adults, given innumerable workshops, conventions, recently appeared on Television. Also has to his credit numerous short stories, articles and radio plays. He is regarded as one of the finest historical writers now at work in Ireland. A few of his 30 publications are Pillars of Fire, (1997); The Darkest Years, (1996); Flight from Toledo, (1996).

Tribute to Ireland

By John Healy

NDREK Gjini, one of the many immigrants to have found freedom from fear in Ireland, is a man who has seen more than his share of life’s ups and downs. The Albanian national, who now lives in Castlebar with his wife and two children, worked for several years as a senior political journalist and as Government Press Officer in his native country . Those were in the heady, promising days of democracy, when Albania moved out from under Communist dominance, and the world began to become a better place. But the wheel turned again, however; individual freedom and the right to free speech again became curtailed. Ndrek Gjini and his family were obliged to flee their homeland, departing with little more than they could carry in their suitcases. Now settled in Castlebar, Ndrek’s first priority is to adjust to Irish life, while at the same time continuing with his writing, so much part of his background and career. As he learns to master the problems of learning English, he is also turning his hand more and more to the poetry, which he so much enjoys. It is through his poetry that he finds it easiest to express his feelings of appreciation at the warmth of the welcome which has been extended to him in his adopted country.

“IRELAND”

Trees, many trees here,

With green leaves

And beautiful flowers.

But I never saw on them any fruit.

In spite of that

I’ve had here the best fruit

I ever tasted

It is called hospitality.

“Here is the news”… talented and eager pupils at Davitt College, Castlebar set headlines

By Tom Sheil

Students at Davitt College, Castelbar are setting a headline for other secondary schools in the region…by producing their own newsletter.Four hundred copies of the first issue of “Davitt News” were eagerly snapped by pupils. It is a four page A3 sized production with lots of news snippets as well as a sports and literary section….The publication of the Davitt College newsletter would not have been possible without the involvement of Ndrek Gjini an Albanian national, now living in Castlebar who gives his desktop publishing skills and time free to the pupils…..“Without Ndrek “Davitt News” would never be published”, one of the magazine co-ordinators teacher Ioseph McGowan explained. “His computer skills are excellent…”.